


Preservation

by inter_spem_et_metum



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Post-The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 05:44:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4948867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inter_spem_et_metum/pseuds/inter_spem_et_metum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John believes Sherlock is still alive after the fall. But where <i>is</i> Sherlock?</p><p>(I just love torturing John post-Reichenbach. I dug this up from a forgotten file from 2012 and decided to finish and post it, for shits & giggles ... hope you enjoy.)</p><p>Many thanks to the wonderful <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrazdova">Vrazdova</a> for the Britpicking and beta!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preservation

_You see, but you do not_ observe _, John_.

Yes, Sherlock, I see. I saw you fall. I saw you alive on the ground, pretending to be dead. I saw, I see. But I still don't understand.

You can't fool an army doctor. Did you honestly think I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a disastrously dead man and a still-living one? A man who's just had his head bashed in and a man who's only pretending to _look_ that way?

I was disoriented, true. That bloke on the bike who smacked into me wasn't very courteous. But I _saw_ the vein in your temple throb. I _saw_ your left eyelid flutter—just slightly—as they hauled you away on the gurney. I'm a _surgeon_ , for God's sake—a good one. I can tell the difference between death by blunt force trauma and the mimicry of it.

You didn't fool me, Sherlock. But I knew, in the space of that moment, that there must be a damn important reason you'd tried to. So I crumpled up, folded inward on myself, made it look as though I believed your lie.

I live alone; I mourn. I even go to therapy. I'm playing this game, your game, and it's all for you—there's nothing in it for me. Nothing but questions and confusion. You played dead to me on the ground and you're still playing dead to me where I can't see you, so I know there must be a reason.

But I don't understand. Should I?

I thought you might sneak up to the flat in disguise. I waited for it afterward—a day, three days, a week. Nothing.

I'm still waiting here for you to debrief me, Sherlock. To fill me in—yet again, yes—on what's really going on here. To _deduce_ that I might possibly require an ounce of reassurance.

Or maybe I'm just waiting for the sound of your living voice. _Hello, John. This death business—awfully tedious, isn't it?_ I can imagine the shape of your smile as you'd say it. (I'm not holding my breath for an apology, of course.)

That's the least you could've done, Sherlock. _Hello, I'm not dead._ (Even Irene had the decency to tell you that.) A simple string of words scratched onto a slip of paper and covertly punched through the mail slot. Or perhaps rolled into a scroll and tied to the leg of a delivery pigeon. (That's creative; I'm sure you could've pulled that off.)

Or, I don't know, perhaps you could've recruited one of your homeless network to pass along a quick message? A five-pound note with a smiley face scrawled over Elizabeth Fry's—X's for eyes. _Some_ goddamn sign that you understand "not dead" means more to me than it does to you.

Because it does, you know. You bloody idiot.

Sherlock, _where the hell are you?_

\---

I forgot to mention that I tried to see you. A couple days after. Because sitting around the flat with nothing to do but wonder where your freshly-dead-but-not- _actually_ flatmate's run off to, while his suicide's being splashed all over the papers and the telly, and you still haven't a clue what's happened or why, excepting a few brief flutters of life on the pavement that you're now seriously starting to question, even as an experienced trauma surgeon—it doesn't make for a good way to pass the day, Sherlock.

Molly sounded uncharacteristically preoccupied on her voicemail. Apologised for not returning my call. Didn't say why. She _did_ say that only family members are allowed to view a corpse once it's been processed—strict morgue procedure. She also said she assumed I wouldn't want to see because it was "messy."

Molly might've forgotten that I'm a doctor, but at least she remembers that you're my friend.

I phoned her back and told her (in another voicemail, dammit—why doesn't anyone pick up their phones?) that I was fine, I was all right to see you, and that I would appreciate if she could give me just one quick look for my own affirmation.

I don't think she believed me, because she still hasn't called back.

Nothing about this feels remotely "messy," Sherlock. It feels fabricated beyond a hair of doubt. And I don't like it one bit.

\---

Well. It's been four full weeks now and—not saying I'm surprised, but—no word. Still.

Something could've happened to you by now, you know. You might've got hurt, or killed. I wouldn't know. There’s no way I _could_ have. Not that I’m supposed to know either way, apparently.

I think I understand the general shape of what you're doing, though. You've gone after Moriarty's network, haven't you? You're going to disassemble it, piece by piece. (It only took me the better part of a month to work that out, I'm sure you're having a hearty laugh over that somewhere.)

But _what_ you're doing, exactly— _where_ and _how_ —those are details you might've considered sharing with me at some point, Sherlock. Me—you remember?—your flatmate, your friend, your idiot colleague—whatever _nom du jour_ you've chosen to gift me with.

That came off a bit sarcastic.

I'm not sorry.

I haven't gone to your brother yet, but I've been weighing it. I'm _this_ close to asking him, Sherlock. And I will, so help me God, if you don't show me something soon.

\---

I took your violin out of its case today, just to have a look. Seems to be in order, though I imagine the strings have gone a bit stiff. I don't know how to properly care for stringed instruments. If it was a clarinet, I could clean it, tune it, maybe play a bit from some half-remembered song to fill some of the quiet corners here. But it's not, it's your bloody violin that you bloody left behind.

I swear to God, Sherlock…

It's been just over a month since you last touched it. I never thought I'd miss the melodic drone of your playing at four in the morning. It woke me every time. If only I thought that had been the point … but no—Sherlock Holmes never plays for the enjoyment of others. He plays to _think_.

\---

You do realise there's about a thousand and one ways to just … let me know you're OK? That's not asking much. Really, it isn't.

\---

Mycroft looked at me like I had two heads when I came 'round to his office last week (we’re at _six weeks_ now, Sherlock). He looked downright stunned, in fact. That's an expression I don't think either of us would've ever expected to see on Mycroft Holmes' face. Shock. And underneath that, carefully manicured remorse. The kind you only take out to pick at when people aren't looking, and then store away again, for the next time you need to think about something that's gone terribly, horribly wrong, and the part you've played in it.

Not suspicion, not relief, not irritation—none of the things a person might display, upon being caught in a lie or a secret. _Remorse_. Sherlock. Mycroft _regrets_ something, and I think it's something to do with you. Something big.

He gave absolutely no indication to the affirmative, of course. Said as far as he's aware, you'd evaluated your options quite clearly on the roof of St Bart's and chosen what might've been the kindest road, in the end.

What road did you really end up taking, Sherlock? And have you reached the end of it, or are you still out there somewhere?

\---

Two months and still no sign of life. You're either extraordinarily deep undercover or a bloody cold-hearted idiot. Possibly both. That's splendid, Sherlock, really.

\---

Three months. Ninety-one days. Well, this is definitely getting old.

Maybe Irene isn't dead. Maybe she really did make it to America. Did you go to America too, Sherlock? Did you suddenly decide, in some serious fit of reversal, to give up everything you knew, everything you had—the city, the flat, the Yard, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, me—to start over somewhere else?

Starting over—there's an idea.

What would you do if I did, Sherlock?

\---

Forget it, I know the answer to that question already.

Nothing. You'd do nothing. Because that's about as much as I've had to go on in the last four—no, nearly five—months, Sherlock.

All this anger—this _grief_ —was easy to fake until it started seeping into reality. Could you know anything about that—about what grief does to a person? About the nauseating balance between hope and doubt?

Could you know anything about what this is doing to _me_?

Yes, _me._ I said it. I'm being selfish, for a change. Did you ever once, Sherlock—did you ever _once_ stop to think that I might not take this well? That you can't just go off and pretend to be dead, and then pirate your way into the criminal underground while leaving your flatmate home with an empty room to pay for, and your family and friends abandoned, with no idea of what's really happened to you?

(That is, except for the ones who believe you're dead … which is apparently everyone but me … which I still don't understand, because if they knew you at all they'd know that Sherlock Holmes would never kill himself. I'm still firmly of the opinion that he's far too enamoured of himself for that.)

\---

Well, that's … six and a half months now. More than half a year gone by.

I know you don't, as a general rule, attach yourself to people. You don't need them—not beyond a superficial level. _People_ are too messy and complicated for you. Soft, woundable balls of flesh fraught with largely immature needs and childish emotions: _I am, I want, I need._

What you _do_ need is your work. And if I know you at all, Sherlock, I know you never would've left your work.

\---

I don't think your brother was terribly pleased to see me again, all these months later. He'd worked out what I'd come 'round to say before I opened my mouth, I could tell. He's a lot like you in that way.

I recorded most of the conversation on my phone in my jacket pocket, so I could listen to it, word for word, later on—just in case I missed something.

 _John, I'm not sure how to put this delicately, but … we have no new information because there_ is _no new information … Sherlock is gone. He's not coming back. He's not on any kind of 'secret mission,' as you say. And I think … I think it would be best if you began thinking about him in the past tense. Or at least referred to him as such, in conversation. Don't take this the wrong way, John, but it might help you to come … to_ terms _… with it._

Mycroft's phone buzzed six times while we were talking. Texts. (Apparently your brother _texts_ now, Sherlock—or at least consents to receiving them—in case you didn't know.) He glanced at the screen, but didn't read them. He suggested that I set up an appointment with his secretary so we could meet to talk further "if I'd like."

(I'm almost sure he meant to say, "if necessary," but then changed his mind. Apparently that's something _one_ of the Holmes brothers does now—changes tack and decides to be kind.)

It might've been my imagination, but there was something in his face—in the curve of his mouth—bordering on _pity_ when I stood up to go. He didn't quite frown at me.

He did inquire about the flat, though. I didn't have the energy or goodwill to tell him I'm not there anymore.

\---

Happy new year (plus some).

Maybe I was wrong about that bit I wrote six months back. Not the work. _Attachment_. You sort of attached yourself to me, didn't you? At least it felt like you did. Insofar as you relied on anybody for anything—assistance, entertainment, validation, reinforcement, I don't know—you seemed to trust that I could be relied upon without interfering too much.

But now I can't interfere at all, can I. You've made sure of that. You've made it so I won't, even if I wanted to. I can't get in your way anymore, Sherlock. But you're still squarely in mine.

If I could shelve this ridiculous, one-sided argument for good, I would. Somewhere closed, beneath a heavy lid, or smashed up into a ball, where I can't see or feel it, until you come back. _If_ you come back.

 _Are_ you coming back?

\---

The funny thing about doubt is—sometimes it can breed hope. But the reverse is also true, and both can be equally destructive.

A friend told me that recently. We were having lunch in the park. It's almost spring. She's a brilliant listener. And _not_ a therapist (in case you were wondering).

I'm not sure why I'm still talking to you.

It seems like a total contradiction at times—I know what I saw, and I know you weren't dead. Maybe you are now, though. Maybe you've become _my_ skull on the mantle.

\---

A year, Sherlock. One year ago, today.

It's an anniversary of sorts, isn't it? Bit of a morbid thought, maybe, but you might've appreciated it at one time.

I'm starting to understand—really understand—that this day will _remain_ an anniversary. And that you're not coming back, even if you _are_ still alive and out there somewhere.

The reason is this: no person who cares about anyone, in any capacity, at _all_ , leaves a friend in that way and doesn't explain why, Sherlock. And your 'note' on the roof doesn't count, because both you and I know there was no truth in those words. None at all.

But here's another funny thing about doubt, Sherlock—sometimes it _exposes_ truth. You realised that yourself in Dartmoor. I had to doubt all the evidence of your death to believe that you were still alive—and that, _because_ you were still alive, there was a good reason for your disappearance. One that I would, of course, be made privy to as soon as the timing was right.

That's the thing, though—the timing will never be right, because it's already been too long, Sherlock. Any reason you had for doing what you did has become solely your own—it's no longer for me, or for Mycroft, or Lestrade, or Mrs Hudson, or even for Moriarty.

You're off on your own—as usual—playing a game. We're just pawns, and you're the mad bishop, drifting sideways over everyone else's lives, taking no notice of whom you topple and whom you save.

Your game is a game of one, Sherlock. There's no room for me, or for anyone else. You may still be watching me, but I'm no longer waiting for your next move.

I can't.

The timer's run out, the truth is clearer than ever: in the end, you _do_ always work alone. It's what you have; it's what protects you.

So have it, then— _alone_. You've certainly earned it.

\---

Epilogue (see: https://youtu.be/Mceg5qvd8Ss)

_Donde estas, donde estas, Yolanda?_

_Que paso, que paso, Yolanda?_

_Te busque, te busque, Yolanda,_

_Y no estas, y no estas Yolanda._

 


End file.
